Juror from first Sheldon Silver corruption trial would reverse 'guilty' vote if possible

One of the jurors from Sheldon Silver's first corruption trial said he desrves to be set free and that “If I could do it again, I would stick it out for not guilty." (Andrew Savulich/New York Daily News)

A juror in the first corruption trial against Sheldon Silver said he would change his guilty vote to "not guilty" if it were possible.

"When you are on a jury, sometimes you gotta do what the rest of them do," said Kenneth Graham, one of 12 jurors who found the ex-Assembly Speaker guilty of seven corruption counts in November 2015.

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Silver is scheduled to be retried on April 16 because an appeals court decision threw out his initial conviction.

"I think they should set him free," the Bronx cabbie told the Daily News, saying he opposed a retrial of Silver. "I want him to (be) set free in the first place."

Graham said he hadn't been fully convinced of Silver's guilt the first time around — but in the end, peer pressure did him in.

"I was the one that was sticking out to the last end," said Graham, 72.

"I just go along with the majority of people, you know what I mean? I go along with the other jurors."

The courteous cabbie said it got increasingly difficult to be a hold-out among those who wanted to convict.

Front page of the New York Daily News for Dec. 12, 2015. (New York Daily News)

"What should I do? Sit there and do this and do that? I didn't want to sit there," Graham said. "I just want to go along with the rest of the people."

Graham tried to get out of jury duty by telling Judge Valerie Caproni he leased a medallion from one of Silver's acquaintances.

But the judge wasn't buying it.

"If I could do it again, I would stick it out for not guilty," said Graham.

He told The News earlier this week the judge rejected his medallion argument because he didn't have "concrete evidence" of a link to Silver.

Graham said the majority of jurors who felt Silver was guilty "didn't give you a choice" and pressured dissenters into voting for a conviction.

"There was one woman that was almost crying," he said.

Front page of the New York Daily News for Dec. 1, 2015. (New York Daily News)

Other jurors could not be reached to confirm Graham's account of the deliberations.

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One juror, Arleen Phillips, did write to Caproni during deliberations, telling the judge she was freaking out because of fellow jurors' reactions to her initial, dissenting view.

Both prosecutors and Silver's lawyers declined to comment on Graham's statements.

Silver, long one of the most powerful Democrats in Albany, will face a Manhattan Federal Court jury later this month in his retrial on corruption charges.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Silver's conviction on July 13 on the grounds that Caproni had instructed the jury incorrectly.

The erroneous instructions stem from a U.S. Supreme Court decision that came down after his conviction — not an error on Caproni's part.